The invention relates to edible compositions containing petroselinic acid for anti-inflammatory and/or anti-aging use. Petroselinic acid is a well known compound that eg is present in coriander oil in relatively high amounts. Its use in food products is also disclosed in literature. EP 777971 eg discloses that fat compositions can be obtained from fats that have high contents of asymmetric monounsaturated fatty acids, such as petroselinic acid, ie PSA ( greater than 79 wt %) and that have simultaneously low contents of trans acids ( less than 5 wt %). The fat compositions obtained can be used as fat replacer with a number of benefits such as providing good textural properties to the food, while not raising the LDL-cholesterol levels in the blood serum. When considering example 5, in particular table 3 of this patent application one must conclude that good product performance is only obtained if the fat applied contains about 12 wt % PSA. Products based on fats without PSA perform badly (=control fat 1). Fats with only small amounts PSA are still grainy, while using a fat with a high content of PSA (=fat 4 with about 64 wt % PSA via the coriander oil) has a poor overall appearance. Food products that are indicated are margarines, dressings, confections, spreads, frozen desserts, ice cream, mayonnaise, mustards, cheese, dip sauces, bread, biscuit, dairy products, frying oils, CBE""s, candy, meat, egg products, nut products, vegetable or fruit products, toppings, creams, puddings, cookies, pastries, pies, crackers, cakes, bread rolls and ingredients or premixes herefore. As PSA is the active ingredient that provides the health benefits to the food product there is a big need to be able to use fats with high levels of PSA but that perform well when applied in food products. Ie the appearance of the food products should be good as well.
Inflammation is a key problem in a number of disease states. Extensive scientific research has focused on identifying compounds that have anti-inflammatory activity. So far the main treaments are synthetic compounds in the pharmaceutical area or complex mixtures of compounds, synthetic or natural. It is known that fish oils can be used to some extent as an anti-inflammatory. However, fish oils have the disadvantage of being very unstable and of forming off tastes very easily. Therefore the use of products based on fish oils as anti-inflammatory compositions has not found wide commercial application within the public domain.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,918,063 (1990) discloses that some specific inflammatory diseases such as peptic ulcer disease or inflammatory bowel disease can be prevented or treated with mixtures of saturated or unsaturated phospholipids and saturated or unsaturated triglycerides and/or sterols. The activity of these mixtures is attributed to the fact that these mixtures have the ability to increase or maintain its hydrophobic character by treating the luminal surface of the gastrointestinal tract. It is expressly disclosed that the use of unsaturated phospholipids per se does not work. These compounds only can work in the presence of a triglyceride or sterol. This thus leads away from using unsaturated derivatives of fatty acids for the purposes mentioned in this document. No examples are given for the use of petroselinic acid or glycerides containing this. The only indication herefore can be found in a listing in table 1.
The teaching laid down in the above U.S. 063 is confirmed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,178,873, wherein a method for inhibiting phospholipase A2 activity is disclosed by using stearidionic acid or a C20:4 unsaturated fatty acid. In the Tables 2 and 3 it is demonstrated in a comparative example that petroselinic acid is not useful for this purpose.
Another well recognized consumer problem is formed by the aging of the skin. In recent years the demand for methods to improve the appearance of skin and, in particular, for reducing or preventing the visible signs of wrinkled, aged and/or photodamaged skin has grown enormously. It is known in the art that the levels of collagen, a dermal structural protein and decorin, a structuring proteoglycan in skin are significantly reduced with aged and/or photodamaged skin (Lavker et al J.Inv.Derm.1979 73:79-66, Bernstein et al Lab. Invest. 1995 72:662-669). The reduction in these proteins is associated with a decrease in the tensile strength of the skin causing wrinkles and laxity.
Extensive research has focused on identifying actives that have anti-aging activity. One of the main current actives is retinoic acid, giving wrinkle effacement and dermal repair through boosting for example by collagen synthesis (e.g. Griffiths et al. N. Eng. J. med. 1993 329:530-535). According to GB 2 181 349 another solution was found in the use of triglycerides derived from long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids in cosmetic or dermatological compositions. These compositions are thus not edible in general because they also will contain non edible components. Moreover the triglycerides derived from these polyunsaturated fatty acids are unstable in particular with respect to oxygen stability.
We studied whether we could find a natural component that could be used as anti-inflammatory agent without creating problems of side effects and not having the negative aspects from fish oils, and other known anti-inflammatory compositions.
We also studied whether we could find a natural component that could be used as anti-aging agent without creating problems of side effects and not having the negative aspects from the known anti-aging compositions.
We further studied whether we could find fat compositions that combine high PSA levels with a very good product performance.
The study on anti-inflammatory and antiaging activity resulted in our finding that petroselinic acid derivatives (ie free fatty acid, short alkyl ester, short being C1-C4, wax-esters, mono-di- or triglycerides) can be applied as firstly anti-inflammatory agents that act on the formation of metabolites from arachidonic acid (a recognised precursor of inflammatory mediators), or that can reduce the formation of intracellular adhesion molecules, and thus contribute to the inflammatory response. Or secondly can be applied as an anti-aging agent that act by boosting the levels of two structural proteins in the dermis of the skin, collagen and decorin. Moreover we found novel fat compositions that combine high PSA levels with good product performance.
Therefore our invention concerns in the first instance the use of edible compositions containing petroselinic acid for the preparation of functional food compositions or food supplements, wherein the composition containing petroselinic acid is used as an anti-inflammatory component that inhibits the production of metabolites of arachidonic acid and/or reduces the formation of intracellular adhesion molecules.
Our invention further concerns the use of edible compositions containing petroselinic acid for the preparation of functional food compositions or food supplements, wherein the composition containing petroselinic acid is used as an anti-aging component that boosts decorin levels with a positive impact on skin conditions selected from the group consisting of wrinkling, sagging, photodamaged skin, dry skin, flaky skin and age spots.
Functional food compositions being defined as food compositions containing at least one component with a health benefit. Food supplements being defined as compositions that are not used as food per se, but that are used as supplement to the daily food intake, in general in the form of encapsulated essential food ingredients. These edible compositions containing petroselinic acid can be applied in many different forms, but we prefer to apply these compositions as a composition comprising 5-99.9 wt % of fat or fat blend.
The fats that can be used in the compositions containing the petroselinic acid derivative can be selected from the group consisting of: cocoa butter equivalents, palm oil or fractions thereof, palm kernel oil or fractions thereof, interesterified mixtures of above fats, hardened fats or fractions thereof, liquid oils, selected from sunflower oil, high oleic sunflower oil, soybean oil, rape seed oil, cotton seed oil, safflower oil, high oleic safflower oil, maize oil, MCT oils, hardened liquid oils or fractions thereof and mixtures hereof.
These fats are nearly all natural fats (the exception being MCT oils which are synthetic fats based on medium chain fatty acids ie fatty acids with 6-12 carbon atoms). The level of petroselinic acid in the compositions that we can apply for our purposes can vary widely, however we prefer to apply petroselinic acid containing compositions that contain 2-80 wt %, preferably 5-40 wt % of petroselinic acid derivative (calculated as petroselinic acid).
As already indicated above we found that the petroselinic acid could be used in different forms. Very good results were obtained by using the petroselinic acid as free fatty acid, or in a form wherein it is bound to a glycerol backbone as in mono-di- or triglycerides. In this latter case the glycerides must contain at least one petroselinic acid moiety. Other forms are short alkyl esters of the petroselinic acid, short meaning having one to eight, preferably 1 to 4 carbon atoms. Also wax esters, i.e. long chain alcohol esters of petroselinic acid can be applied. Of course also mixtures of above forms can be used.
We also found that the anti-inflammatory and antiaging effect of the petroselinic acid can be increased, even in a synergistic way by using the petroselinic acid derivative in combination with one or more anti-oxidants. Typical examples of useful anti-oxidants can be selected from the group consisting of natural or synthetic tocopherols, natural polyphenols, in particular as present in tea extracts, BHT, BHA, free radical scavengers and enzymes with anti-oxidant properties. From these anti-oxidants we prefer the tocopherols and the polyphenols as present in tea extracts the most.
The petroselinic acid derivatives will structure the fats when applied in a fat surrounding. Therefore structured fats comprising the petroselinic acid composition and wherein the fat has a level of saturated plus trans fatty acids of 25-75 wt % are also part of our invention.
Part of the invention are also the blends of the petroselinic acid containing composition and 0.01-5 wt % of one or more anti-oxidants selected from the group consisting of: natural or synthetic tocopherols, natural polyphenols, in particular as present in tea extracts, BHT, BHA, free radical scavengers and enzymes with anti-oxidant properties.
Food products or food supplements containing these blends are also part of our invention. As food products all food products indicated in EP 777971 could be used.
A very useful form wherein the active petroselinic acid or derivative can be applied is an encapsulated composition, wherein the petroselinic acid is encapsulated in an edible encapsulating material. The encapsulating material is selected from the group consisting of: polysaccharides, sugars, fats, proteins and amino acids.
The encapsulating material is present in an amount of 5-95 wt % on basis of total encapsulated composition.
These encapsulated forms are in general free flowing which makes the dosing of the food products or food supplements easier.
As a result of our study to find fat compositions that combine high PSA levels with very good product performance we found that fat compositions comprising asymmetric isomers from cis monounsaturated fatty acids, wherein the fat composition comprises 15-75 wt %, preferably 20-60 wt %, most preferably 30-60 wt % of asymmetric isomers from cis monounsaturated fatty acids preferably being petroselinic acid, 25-50 wt %, preferably 30-40 wt % of saturated fatty acids with 12-24 carbon atoms and 0-60 wt %, preferably 5-50 wt %, most preferably 15-45 wt % of isomers of other fatty acids with at least 18 carbon atoms, preferably having a cis 9 double bond, preferably being oleic acid, or linoleic acid, are very suitable for this purpose.